


Welcome The New Guy

by Higuchimon



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Diversity Writing Challenge, Gen, Valentine's Day To White Day Advent Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2018-03-15 00:23:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3431063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Higuchimon/pseuds/Higuchimon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last Barian Emperor has arrived and Alit is assigned to show him around.  This is going to be so boring.  Maybe a little sparring will at least give him something to do...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Welcome The New Guy

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit. All forms of feedback eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.  
 **Fandom:** Yu-Gi-Oh Zexal  
 **Title:** Welcome The New Guy  
 **Friendship:** Alit  & Gilag  
 **Word Count:** 2,245|| **Status:** One-shot  
 **Genre:** Friendship|| **Rated:** K  
 **Challenge:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, section D, #17, write using the alliteration device; Written for the Valentine's Day To White Day Challenge, day #3, write your brOTP.  
 **Summary:** The last Barian Emperor has arrived and Alit is assigned to show him around. This is going to be so boring. Maybe a little sparring will at least give him something to do...

* * *

Being a Barian Emperor came with a lot of perks. Nearly impenetrable rock-like skin (or just rock skin, Alit didn't know the difference and cared even less), a lot of awesome powers that he enjoyed spending his time training in, practical immortality (none of them had died so he didn't know if they could die at all, but they clearly weren't going to drop dead of old age, given that he'd been here probably what he thought was a thousand years and looked just as fine as he had the day he'd woken up), and a whole host of others that he hadn't bothered writing down, because he didn't need to know them all, since he _knew_ them all. 

At any rate, there was one perk it didn't come with: a guarantee that all the _other_ Barian Emperors weren't going to be as boring as they actually were. He would've been okay with most of them being dull, each in their own way, but they were _all_ enough to make him want to do... something. He didn't know what, but something. 

So to avoid thinking on it, not that he could do anything about it, he spent his spare time shadow boxing (sometimes with real shadows, sometimes with some of the non-Emperor Barians) and in training duels and hoped that sooner or later, someone would turn up who'd be worth his time talking to. And who'd want to talk to him. 

And someone would, he knew it. Had to know it. Because they were to be the _Seven_ Barian Emperors and there were only six of them. 

Well, maybe five. He didn't want to count Vector. Everyone else did, but he had his doubts about if Vector were actually a Barian or just something that looked like one, like a bad attitude given shape. Sure, he agreed completely that the Astral World sucked and they should find a way to get their revenge on it and everything would be awesome once they did that, but still, Alit wondered. 

At least he did when he thought about Vector. That wasn't often. Alit had a lot of better things he could think about than Vector. 

They were six, not seven -Vector had to count, damn it- and sooner or later they would _be_ seven, and that meant there was a chance this last one would be worth spending some time with. Alit tried not to hope all that strongly. He didn't want to be disappointed. 

"There you are." Vector leaped down from one of the jutting sharp-edged rocks, making a huge production of landing on his feet, wings spread a trifle. "I've been looking for you." 

Alit didn't bother to look at him more than he needed to, or to even notice Vector's agility. Everyone knew how much of a show-off he was. Why bother praising him for it? 

"Why?" That wasn't like Vector. He seldom looked for anyone, unless he wanted a fresh audience for his stunts. Alit wasn't a fresh audience and wouldn't have wanted to be if he was. 

Vector grinned, somehow or other. At least, he kind of wiggled a little in a way that suggested grinning. Alit wasn't sure he knew what a grin was, but Vector had a way of doing things that were impossible. "Nasch is calling a meeting. We're all supposed to be there." 

Alit made a show of not jumping to his feet. Meetings got called every so often and there was very seldom anything to them that he found even the slightest bit interesting. "What's this one about?" 

"Oh, I don't know." Vector shrugged. Alit suspected he was lying. Of course, he suspected that of Vector no matter what. If words came out of Vector, they were probably lies of some kind. Just because they were on the same side didn't in any fashion mean that Vector was someone he trusted on any level. 

He didn't doubt that there was a meeting, though. Even Vector wouldn't misrepresent Nasch's words. They might all be Barian Emperors, but Nasch was the _king_ and they'd all seen what could happen when he lost his temper. It wasn't a pretty sight. 

Still, maybe he could pull something interesting out of it if he tried hard. It would break up the monotony for a little while anyway. 

"All right, let's go." He didn't wait around for Vector, though. If he wanted a traveling companion, there were so many better options. 

Though none of them were the other Emperors. Too bad. 

* * *

Alit had considered adding jogging up and down the steps that led up to Nasch's throne to his usual exercise regimen. There were more than enough of them to make doing so useful. But he would have to ask Nasch's permission on that and while he respected his king, he didn't think the question would go over all that well. 

They were all there. Nasch and Merag and Durbe, all gathered on the throne's dais. Merag and Durbe stood to Nasch's right and left respectively, his sword and shield. Mizael and Vector stood at the foot of the stairs, Alit next to them, and from his expression, Mizael was as baffled by all of this as Alit was. The last time they'd all been gathered like this was when Mizael himself joined them. 

Could it be... Alit let the idea spark inside, just for a second. It wouldn't hurt to hope, would it? 

Nasch rose up and took a step forward. "It's happened. We are no longer six." He gestured with one deep-toned arm to the shadows near the base of the throne and from it there stepped a giant. 

Well, he wasn't really a _giant_ ; Alit had seen creatures that were larger. But for the seven of them, he was clearly the tallest, and came equipped not just with the rock skin and a mask that reminded Alit of his own and Mizael's, but with large, rippling muscles and a curious tilt to his head as he looked all around at them. 

"This is Gilag," Durbe spoke up from beside Nasch. "Gilag, you've met Nasch, our king, already. This is Merag, his sister." He gestured to the lone Barian Empress, who bent her head gracefully. "I am Durbe, Nasch's right hand." 

Alit was close enough to Vector to hear him mutter something under his breath that didn't even sound remotely like 'right hand'. For a moment he wondered what Vector was talking about, then decided he didn't really want to know. 

"Mizael, the dragon-tamer," Durbe continued, one hand indicating the golden Barian, who folded his arms over his chest and nodded briefly toward Gilag. "Alit, a great warrior. And Vector." 

Vector cocked his head to the side and grinned mouthlessly. "Everyone else gets some kind of title but me?" He laughed and shrugged. "I suppose I am impossible to describe in just a few words." 

Alit kept every word he would've liked to have used about that strictly behind his mask. Instead, he examined this Gilag. Tall. Broad-shouldered. He clearly knew something about fighting. The tall part caught onto his attention the most. Gilag didn't seem the type to be interested in _his_ kind of fighting, which meant his hopes of finding someone who he could just hang out with were once again, and finally, dashed. 

"Alit." Nasch's large eyes turned firmly on him and Alit drew himself up at once. "Show Gilag around our world." 

Why did he get baby-sitting duty? Couldn't Mizael do it? That was what Alit wanted to say. What he said instead was, "Of course." One didn't refuse Nasch. 

* * *

Gilag didn't say a great deal as Alit showed him around the place. Finding him a set of rooms wasn't a problem at all; there were only seven suites for the Emperors anyway, so he just showed him to the empty one. There wasn't much there, but that would change in due time, Alit knew. There hadn't been much in his room when he'd arrived here either. 

"So what do we do?" Gilag asked as Alit took him around to the various important places in the castle. Most of those involved training areas, both for dueling and for sparring of other kinds. 

Alit shrugged. "Whatever we want. Eventually we're going to find a way to stop the Astral World but right now that's more of a 'we're going to do it someday' goal. It's not something we can do now. Nasch says the things we need to do it aren't ready to do yet." 

Gilag nodded and Alit kind of wished he could see more of his face. It was hard enough to know what any of them were thinking and the mask didn't make it any easier. 

"What else?" 

"We all have hobbies. It makes the time go by." He flicked one hand and his dueling deck appeared. "We duel. We duel a lot, honestly. We need to be strong enough when the time comes." He looked forward to when they could duel for real and not just these training games. It would happen. They just had to be patient. 

Gilag looked at it, a slight wrinkle forming between his eyes. "I don't think I have one of those." 

Alit blinked a few times at that, then laughed. "Of course you do. You just don't know where it is yet. Don't worry about it." Oh, man, if Gilag didn't know how to duel...they'd have to teach him. That would be _fantastic_

"Anything else?" Gilag tilted his hand back and forth in what was clearly an amusing attempt to make his deck appear the way Alit had. Alit tried not to laugh at that and wasn't having the best of luck doing so. 

"That's about it. Durbe has a library but I don't go there all that often." Why would he? Books were all right, in some situations, but he much preferred doing other things. From the tilt of his head, Gilag didn't look ready to go read every book he could get his hands on either. 

"So what do you do?" 

Alit leaned against one of the more comfortable rocks. He liked this rock, red, rough, rocky, and round against his skin. He'd thought about having it moved to his personal quarters to lounge around on when he had nothing better to do with his time. 

"Well, I spar a lot, with whoever I can." He waved one hand in a vague direction. "We aren't the only Barians. There are plenty of them down below. I spar against anyone there who can stand up to me for a few minutes." Not that there were very many of those and he'd already found most of those. The problem with being immortal was that they also didn't seem to produce children and people took forever to age even a day, if they bothered with that. So there weren't likely to suddenly be people he didn't know who could fight him the way he liked to be fought. 

Gilag looked at him, wrinkling again, this time in a way Alit recognized because he'd had it on his own so many times. "I think I could spar. I think I remember doing that." 

It wouldn't be much of a memory if he did; no Barian remembered anything but the vaguest of what they might've been or done before awakening in this world. But it was more than enough to get Alit's attention and he hopped to his feet, grinning. 

"Let's give it a shot then." His fists were already up, and Gilag had just enough time to nod before one shot toward him. 

Alit fully expected to hit. He expected this fight to take no more than a few minutes, if that. Mizael hadn't even wanted to try sparring with him. The blond and Durbe worked out together now and then, but Alit apparently wasn't the type of fighter Mizael wanted to work with. 

Gilag's hand flew up and caught Alit's partway there. For a few moments, the two of them stared at each other. 

Alit didn't have a mouth but he grinned widely in his heart. "Think you can do that again?" 

"Let's find out." Gilag's excitement matched his own, even as his free fist shot toward Alit, who dodged out of the way in the nick of time. 

He rubbed at his face briefly. This was going to be a lot more fun than he'd first thought. 

* * *

"How long have they been at it again?" Nasch asked, staring at where Gilag and Alit dodged and ducked, threw punches and kicks, some connecting and some not. The entire area bore the signs of their combat, broken rocks, furrows in the ground, and dust kicked up everywhere. 

Durbe judged the whole view with a thoughtful eye. "Hours. I don't think Alit's been this happy since he arrived." 

Nasch nodded; he'd seen the same signs Durbe had that Alit wasn't completely content. He knew next to nothing about what Gilag might've been before arriving, but this did look as if it would settle them both down. 

"As long as Gilag learns how to duel." As much fun as sparring might be, dueling was where their future resided, and Nasch refused to let them lose it. 

Alit and Gilag fought on, the only future either of them caring about being their next fight, and finally having someone they could connect with. 

**The End**


End file.
